


Sunset Over Scotland

by timetravelbypen



Series: A trip in the box through history [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Arthur Conan Doyle Canon References, Edinburgh, F/F, Historical, In which the fam climb Arthur's Seat because the author misses Scotland, Nineteenth Century, No Spoilers, lots of hand-holding, that's it that's the fic, vague fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:13:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23709721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timetravelbypen/pseuds/timetravelbypen
Summary: The Doctor takes the fam for a walk up Arthur's Seat in the nineteenth century, and is totally not at all infatuated with Yaz.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Series: A trip in the box through history [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1707598
Comments: 15
Kudos: 39





	Sunset Over Scotland

The Doctor was not allowed to fall in love.

But looking at Yasmin Khan’s face in the glow of an Edinburgh sunset… that was worth cheating for.

She’d brought the fam here chasing some odd energy signals, only to end up spending the weekend following Sir Arthur Conan Doyle around the city, dodging grumpy Sherlock Holmes fans and aliens-disguised-as-fairies alike. But, they’d sorted it, sent everyone back to the galaxy they were meant to be in, and gotten Graham a bite to eat in a local pub for extra points. The Doctor had been about to pack everybody back into the TARDIS when the stubborn grey clouds that had been clinging to the city like a damp coat for days finally parted, and the Doctor had grabbed Yaz by the hand and pulled her and the rest of the fam in a different direction instead.

So now here they were, half an hour and infinite questions later, catching their breath and watching the sun set over the city from the top of Arthur’s Seat. They had the spit of rock to themselves; behind them, the last of the sun’s rays glittered across the harbor miles below their feet, and ahead, the rolling green of the hill caught fire in the fading amber light. Ryan and Graham had plopped onto a dry spot of rock a few meters past where the Doctor now stood, surveying everything with hands on her hips; the boys looked tired from their climb, a bit sweaty in their stuffy nineteenth-century collars, but the quiet awe of the place was still clear on their faces.

And Yaz, brilliant Yaz, had clambered up as high as she could go, watching the sky with unconcealed wonder. It was an ordinary sunset on ordinary Earth. Beautiful, to be sure, but nothing out of the common way. But that did not stop Yaz from drinking in the spectacle like it was the rarest and most precious thing she’d ever seen.

This, the Doctor knew, was why she loved travelling with humans. All her lives, all the things she’d seen, the things she’d done, they weighted at her, sometimes. Dragged her down. But humans – mad, brilliant, vexing, impossible humans, in all their complexities – they reminded her of what it was like to look at the universe in wonder. To be excited by new things, to be surprised, to notice the joy in the details. They reminded her that kindness mattered, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable evidence to the contrary. The friends she made, the people she travelled with, shone like stars guiding her through a dark and indifferent universe.

And sometimes, one of those humans shone so brightly, that it was enough to sneak through the cracks in the walls she kept tight around her hearts. Sometimes, they snuck through and made a home there, and even though the Doctor should know better by now, should send them gently out and seal the walls behind them, she never could quite manage to do it.

Yaz turned her face from the darkening sky and caught the Doctor staring at her, but before the Doctor could pretend to look elsewhere, Yaz shot her a wide and beaming smile the Doctor couldn’t help but return.

“So what d’you think, fam?” she asked, marching up to Yaz’ spot and plopping down beside her, purple coat flapping in the breeze. “Worth the trip up?”

“Definitely,” Yaz replied, sitting down at the Doctor’s side and nudging her with her shoulder.

“Always wanted to come up to Edinburgh,” Graham said, and the soft, faraway look on his face told the Doctor exactly what he wasn’t saying: that he’d always wanted to come here with Grace. “Could’ve done without those fairy things trying to eat my face, mind.”

“That goes without saying, though,” Ryan added. “This is a proper nice view and all, though. No tourists or anything.”

“’Cept us,” Yaz pointed out.

“We’re not tourists,” the Doctor pointed out, mock-offence laid into her voice.

“Oh yeah? What are we, then?” Yaz replied, mischief sparkling in her eyes.

The Doctor paused, looking out at a planet that wasn’t hers, a time that she could lay no claim to.

A family that belonged to her.

“Visitors,” she offered, tilting her face to the sky. “Adventurers. People who help, when they can.”

“Sounds all right enough,” Graham replied.

They stayed and watched the sun go down till it was nearly gone, the last tints of orange just a burnt smudge across the very edge of the Scottish horizon.

“Right,” the Doctor said, getting to her feet and brushing her hands off on her coat. “Home, then?”

Graham and Ryan nodded, shuffling to their feet and making their way down Arthur’s Seat again, choosing their steps carefully in the growing dark. Yaz, on the other hand, had gotten a bit stuck.

“Er, Doctor, I – this bloody corset, I can’t bend over. I – a little help?”

The Doctor offered a wide grin and a hand up, pulling Yaz easily to her feet.

“Dunno how ladies in the eighteen hundreds got anything done like this,” Yaz said as they headed down the hill again, arm in arm. “Though I suppose they were used to it. Still – thanks, Doctor.”

“Any time, Yasmin Khan,” she said, wrapping the warmth of Yaz’ responding smile around her like the softest scarf in the world.

They marched like that, linked together at the elbow, all the way back to the TARDIS. The Doctor caught a very pointed look from Graham as she stood aside to let them all back through the doors of her ship, and she just raised an eyebrow in response. She could hold hands with Yaz if she liked. She could keep her close if she liked, and keep right on pretending it wasn’t going to eventually break both of her hearts wide open.

_You know that that’s not how this is going to work, don’t you_ , her ship burbled to her softly as she got to work setting them on their way back to twenty-first century Sheffield.

“Yeah, 'course I know, leave it,” she mumbled, pressing down on a lever perhaps a bit harder than she’d meant to.

“Doctor?” said Ryan, “You all right?”

She looked up to see that she’d spoken aloud, that her fam were all watching her with puzzled looks on their faces.

“Fine, yeah,” she said at once, offering up a smile. “Just need to have a word with this one-” she glanced pointedly at the TARDIS console “-and I’ll have you home again right off.”

She caught Yaz’ eye across the console; she looked not quite convinced, but the Doctor let her smile soften a bit into one that was less purposefully cheery and more just for Yaz to see, and the worry crept out of her face sure enough.

“Anyone fancy a cuppa after I get this suit off and more normal clothes back on?” Graham asked, already tugging at his cravat and loosening his stiff starched collar.

They left her to it then, chattering away as they returned to their rooms before padding towards the kitchen in pajamas. The Doctor set them on a lazy course towards Sheffield, not eager to rush this quiet, in-between time with them, not eager to spend any time at all by herself.

The TARDIS chirped at her again, nudging her to follow them, to take Yaz by the hand and offer up the truth as if that would be some kind of gift.

But all the Doctor needed, at least right then, at least for now, was the memory of a sunset in Edinburgh, the sight of eyes filled with wonder, the warmth of a smile. She could tuck those things safely away, all the more precious for being so fleeting, and it would see her through. It was better this way, she insisted, half to herself and half to the persistent voice of her ship nattering in her ear. People got hurt if she let them in too close. The TARDIS could easily pull up a montage of evidence to that effect. This way, she wouldn’t hurt Yaz, who didn’t deserve to have her heart broken by a universe indifferent to the wonder in her eyes.

This way, she wouldn’t hurt herself, even though she deserved it maybe a little bit.

“Doctor!” Yaz called, cutting through her thoughts, a beam of sunlight through dusty air. “C’mon, Ryan picked out the movie this time, don’t want to start without you.”

This time, it was Yaz who reached out to grab the Doctor’s hand and pull her along in her wake. And this time, when the TARDIS whispered its quiet _I told you so_ into the Doctor’s head, the ship received not one single protest in return.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi friends! This is a thing that flashed into my brain because I wanted them to hang out on Arthur's Seat at sunset, because I miss Scotland. I am fairly tempted to flesh out the Arthur Conan Doyle idea (I think it's fairly common knowledge that he hated Sherlock Holmes fans a *lot*, but possibly less well-known that he fully, 100% believed in fairies and the supernatural) but this would require a full-blown mystery plot and my quarantine brain is just... not there. We'll see where that goes if this percolates for a bit. 
> 
> So, I hope you enjoy this little snippet! Your comments on my other fics have really been hugely comforting in the midst of all this anxiety and uncertainty, so thanks for reading and thanks for sharing your own stories!


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